48

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XI.

I(j8!).

Unpopu-larity ofWilliam.

the King to detain in custody during a few weeks such personsas he should suspect of evil designs against his government.This bill passed the two Houses with little or no opposition.*But the malecontents out of doors did not fail to remark that, inthe late reign, the Habeas Corpus Act had not been one daysuspended. It was the fashion to call James a tyrant, andWilliam a deliverer. Yet, before the deliverer had been amonth on the throne, he had deprived Englishmen of a preciousright which the tyrant had respected.** This is a kind of re-proach which a government sprung from a popular revolutionalmost inevitably incurs. From such a government men natu-rally think themselves entitled to demand a more gentle andliberal administration than is expected from old and deeplyrooted power. Yet such a government, having, as it alwayshas, many active enemies, and not having the strength derivedfrom legitimacy and prescription, can at first maintain itselfonly by a vigilance and a severity of which old and deeplyrooted power stands in no need. Extraordinary and irregularvindications of public liberty are sometimes necessary: yet,however necessary, they are almost always followed by sometemporary abridgments of that very liberty; and every suchabridgment is a fertile and plausible theme for sarcasm andinvective.

Unhappily sarcasm and invective directed against Williamwere but too likely to find favourable audience. Each of thetwo great parties had its own reasons for being dissatisfied withhim; and there were some complaints in which both partiesjoined. His manners gave almost universal offence. He wasin truth far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn acourt. In the highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equalamong his contemporaries. lie had formed plans not inferior

* Stat. 1 W. * M. scss. J. c. 2.

** Ronquillo, Marches. 1689.